Butterfly
by theunknownforce
Summary: Harry, Hermione, and Ron had their usual summer routine before their fifth year disrupted by the request of the Order of the Phoenix to spy on Draco Malfoy. Their mission is to find the mystical Recondite Butterfly with unknown powers before it falls into
1. Commotion in the Headquarters

Chapter 1

It was seven o'clock in the headquarters of The Order of the Phoenix. Even though it was in the middle of August, the weather was anything but mild. Strong, relentless wind whistled and echoed through the streets of Grimmauld Place. Rain pounded endlessly on the windows of the houses. The melody of the wind chimes echoed throughout the city, but the wind and the rain could not drown out the commotion that was clearly occurring the kitchen. Harry, Ron, and Ginny looked up from their game of exploding snap and strained their ears towards the kitchen. Even Hermione looked up from the book she was reading.

"She's too young. I refuse--" a female voice was yelling.

"It's up to her," a calmer male voice cut off the argument from the female.

"It's too dangerous. They're too young, they won't understand the dangers!" The female voice was hysterical now.

"I agree with Kingsley. Molly, they're not little children anymore, they can make their own decisions," A third voice interrupted.

"Arthur, you stay out of this!" The female voice that was clearly Mrs. Weasley countered.

"Enough! Bring them in!" A much firmer voice commanded that silenced the discussion.

"What do you reckon their arguing about? Mum sounded like the time Fred and George threw Ginny up a tree and left her there," Ron wondered out loud.

"Probably something to do with the Order, or…Harry," Hermione hesitated before replying. Her eyes darted sideways, trying to see if Harry would blow up at the comment.

Before any of them could make anymore guesses as to what was going on in the kitchen, an angry Mrs. Weasley came out and ushered them in.

"Ginny, you stay out," she firmly instructed.

Ginny's protests fell on deaf ears as Harry, Hermione, and Ron passed her apologetic looks on their way to the kitchen.

When they entered, they could see a few members of the Order sitting at the well Kitchen table. Pots and pans still littered the counters and dishes were being washed by invisible hands in the sinks. After being told to sit down, Kingley Shacklebolt spoke first.

"We have a mission for you," he said in a much more business-like tone than usual.

The three of them froze in the seats of their hard, wooden backed chairs. The Order had forbidden them to listen to meetings before. Now, a _mission? _It was unbelievable.

"What is it?" Harry eagerly asked. His hands gripped the cold table. He had always wanted to do something for the Order, something to help destroy Voldemort. This was his chance.

Kingsley cleared his throat before continuing. He reluctantly replied without making eye contact with Harry.

"The mission…is for Hermione," he said.

"What?" This time it was not Harry that spoke, but Ron.

"Don't shout, Ron," Remus Lupin calmly responded to Ron's outburst.

"As I was saying before, we have a mission for Hermione. Before you decide to accept this mission or not," he stopped for a moment, looking at Hermione before continuing. Mrs. Weasley was shooting evil glares at him. "I must warn you, this is a dangerous mission and if you agree, you will have to spend the remainder of your summer vacation training for it."

"What is it?" Hermione curiously asked.

"As you all know, You-Know-Who has returned and his Death Eaters have already begun to carry out his plans of killing muggles. We need a spy to not allow their plans to work," Kingsley replied.

"Who do I need to spy on?" Hermione replied with more eagerness in her voice.

"Draco Malfoy, son of the Death Eater, Lucius Malfoy," he calmly replied.

"What? Am I supposed to seduce him or something?" Hermione sarcastically replied. She and Malfoy couldn't even speak civilly to each other. How was she supposed to gain his trust?

"When all else fails, that could be an option," Kingsley quietly replied without a hint of embarrassment.

"Why did you choose Hermione? Why not me or Ron?" Harry demanded.

"We have considered you, Ron, and Ginny, but there was too much hate between you, Ron, and Draco Malfoy to make this mission work," Lupin spoke up and answered Harry's question.

"What about Ginny?" Ron asked. Mrs. Weasley was shooting death glares at her son as if he suggested they spear Ginny to death.

"We figured that we should choose someone in Malfoy's year so you would have more opportunities to interact with him," Arthur explained.

"I'd rather interact with a spotted toad," Ron muttered under his breath.

"Before we continue explaining this mission, to you. We need to know whether Hermione accepts this mission or not," KIngsley announced.

"Now, Hermione. I don't want you feeling pressured. You don't have to accept this mission. This can be very dangerous. The Malfoy boy has a Death Eater for a father, you could get seriously hurt. You're just as good as a daughter to me. I don't want you getting hurt from their absurd ideas," Mrs. Weasley cut Kingsley off and tried to convice Hermione not to accept the mission in a warm, motherly tone while glaring angrily at Kingsley.

"I'll--I'll accept," Hermione hesitated before replying.

Kingsley smiled triumphantly at an angry Mrs. Weasley.

"Now, this mission involves you boys as well," Lupin gestured towards Harry and Ron. "You two have to participate in the training and help Hermione."

"Now, we're going to start…" Kingsley continued on telling about all the defensive spells and special skills that Hermione was going to have to learn.

The music of the wind chimes drifted across London towards the Malfoy Manor. Mookie the house elf shivered as the winds traveled down the drafty hallway. Wearing only a tea towel as a toga, she carried a tray of tea and biscuits that her mistress demanded her to send up to her room from the kitchen. As she walked pass the study, she noticed that the fire place was lit. Usually only the master stayed in the study and he seldom stayed there at night. There door was open just a tiny crack and Mookie could hear voices inside the study. She peered in and saw her master sitting behind his desk and talking to young master. The fireplace roared and crackled. She could barely hear their low voices talking.

"The Dark Lord is not pleased with me," The elder Malfoy told Draco.

"It doesn't matter, does it? I mean you're part of the ministry now aren't you?" Draco retorted.

"You are thinking like a child! Once you have received the mark, you are his servant forever!" Lucius roared, rolling up his sleeve and showing Draco something on his arm that Mookie could not see.

"Then what do you want me to do?" Draco asked impatiently.

"I need you to capture someone so I can present it as a gift to the Dark Lord," Lucius responded more calmly than before.

"Who do I need to capture?" Draco asked.

Who the young master needed to capture, Mookie did not find out. Because at that moment, she dropped his tray of tea and biscuits. All the rumors that the Malfoys were Death Eaters were true. They were working for the dark side.

Lucius Malfoy heard the commotion and opened his door with his wand. There, stood the trembling and terrified house elf.

"I guarantee that nobody except you and me know our secret," Lucius Malfoy gestured at his son.

Without another word, he shouted "Aveda Kedevra" and the house elf was dead before she hit the ground.

Draco swallowed his scream of terror as he stepped over the body of the house elf and walked towards his bedroom.


	2. Aboard the Train

Chapter 2

A loud hooting sound emitted from a bright, red steam engine train. It was nine o'clock on Platform nine and three quarters. It was a bright sunny day, contary to most days during that summer. The platform was bustling with excitement as students lugging heavy trunks bade their parents goodbye and climbed onto the Hogwarts Express. Near the barrier, three severe blonds suddenly appeared in thin air. Their sudden appearance and the fact that they hadn't bothered to dress in muggle clothing would have made them stand out brightly from the crowd if everyone else hadn't been so busy bustling about. One glance from their steel-cold, gray eyes told everyone that they were the infamous Malfoys. The three of them stalked haughtily through the crowd until they reached the entrance to the train. Narcissa Malfoy bent down lightly to give her son a hug.

"Write home if you need anything," she said in warmer tones than usual.

"I know, Mother," Draco Malfoy replied.

Lucius Malfoy then moved closer to his son and bent down towards him as if giving a hug, but instead whispered into his ear.

"Remember our secret, this is your chance to prove which sides your loyalty lie," he whispered into Draco's ear. His tone was stern with an icy edge.

"Yes, I know Father," Draco replied stiffly with his chin held high, trying to give the impression of taking orders without obedience.

Lucius patted his son on the shoulder and told him to have a good year as Draco climbed onto the train without looking back. He spent the summer _obeying, respecting, _and _performing tasks_ for his father. Three things he hated to do the most. He the heir of the Malfoy fortune, a Slytherin pureblood, the king of his own world. The _thought_, even the _thought _of obeying another person, (despite the fact that it was his father) disgusted him.

He dragged his trunk on the train trying to find a compartment. Where were Crabbe and Goyle when you needed them anyways? They weren't the most exciting company in the world, but their strength combined with the lack of brains made them ideal servants for his time at Hogwarts. He would have tried to make friends, but then he would have to _trust them, help them, _and _be nice _to them. A Malfoy doing any of those things would have made him snort with laughter, except Malfoys don't snort. They should always be cool and composed, as he learned when he was younger. He passed by many partially empty compartments with only a few students in them, but they Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. He was a Slytherin. Slytherins only sat with each other.

He finally dragged his trunk into a compartment, to his surprise, in there were the top three people in his most hated list: Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger. He stared at them with the most arrogant look he could come up with. He could use a good fight after all that _obedience _for the last two months. The best part was, he was a prefect, so they wouldn't dare harm him anyways. To his surprise, Hermione merely decided not to acknowledge his existence while Ron and Harry seemed to be using all their energy to keep their hands from away from their wands.

"Scar-head, Weasel, and Mudblood," Draco drawled with a smirk on his face. He could almost see Harry and Ron's temples turn purple from the strain of resisting attacking him. He felt a savage pleasure taunting them, but there was something about them that he couldn't understand. Why were they ignoring him? Hermione may keep her temper under control, but what about Ron and Harry? Normally, their wands would have been drawn by now. Taunting was no fun when the people you're trying to torture aren't responding. Even though he knew it was a stupid idea, he decided to take it one step further.

He drew his wand and pointed it to Harry's chest.

"Diffin-" Draco didn't get to finish the spell, because he was interrupted by Hermione.

"Expelliarmus!" she bellowed. Her hand had flew to her wand at lightning speed that he was caught by surprise.

"I'm a Prefect," Draco tried to calmly scare her off.

"So am I," Hermione responded calmly with a Dumbledore-like smile. She pointed her wand straight at his chest.

Draco could see Hermione coolly smiling at him with her wand pointing at him. He turned his head to the compartment doors desperately hoping for a teacher to walk by. But teachers didn't patrol the train, he tried to move but his knees kept trembling.

Hermione was smirking now. Ron and Harry took their wands out, but Hermione motioned for them to put them away. To Draco's surprise and immense relief they actually agreed.

Hermione stared straight into Draco's gray eyes and kept the wand pointed straight at his heart, he could see her lips move.

"Reducto!" she bellowed. For a split second, he thought he was going to get shattered into pieces. The logical side of him knew that she wouldn't seriously harm him, but the embarrassment of the whole situation was what worried him. His skin was plastered in sweat and his heart hammered against his ribs. She had moved her wand away from his chest just the millisecond before the beam of magic shot out from her wand. The seat beside Draco was reduced to dust.

"Leave. Now," Hermione's request, or more like demand radiated authority down to every last syllable of her two words. Without waiting for a response, she flicked her wand and his trunk and wand flew out the compartment doors.

"See you at the Prefect meeting later," Hermione said in a falsely friendly sugarcoated tone.

Draco's cheeks turned slightly pink. Any other normal person would be beet-red in situations like this, but he was a Malfoy. They were trained to never show weakness, but with his wand outside the compartment, he could only give Hermione the finger and walk out with his chin held high.

"Why didn't you Jelly-Jinx him?" Ron demanded when Draco left the compartment. He had wanted to give Malfoy what he deserved for a long time. He only put his wand away today, because he thought Hermione was going to do something she learned out of some library book.

"If I did, he would've blabbed, then we would get in trouble on the first day!" Hermione exclaimed, "Anyways, what I just did was probably worse to him than if I Jelly-Jinxed him."

"Well, he's in one piece right now. I don't see how that was worse than being jinxed," Harry stated.

"Honestly, you just don't understand the Slytherins, especially Malfoy," Hermione told the both of them.

"Well we're not girls, we're not good with _feelings_," Ron said, emphasizing the last word.

"I still don't get it," Harry said in a confused voice.

"See, with a Slytherin, the most important thing is face. Losing face would be like having your pants pulled down in front of the school to them," Hermione explained.

"How do you get all this stuff?" Ron asked, clearly amazed.

"Didn't you read the books Kingsley gave us? Sucking up to him will just make it look suspicious," Hermione asked looking at the two of them.

"Well some of us don't walk around memorizing _'Spying for the Spy', 'Beyond the Eyes'_, or whatever boulder-sized books he gave us," Ron retorted. Much to his and Harry's disappointment, they did not spend the summer learning cool defensive spells. Instead, most of the time was spent reading books and learning how to talk in different ways. Apparently, according to Kingsley, there were one thousand eight hundred fifty six ways a person could tell you were lying without using Legilimency.

"At least I read-" Hermione was cut off by Harry who was tired of the pointless argument and wanted to change the subject.

"Did you check the coin?" Harry asked. After much consideration, the Order had decided to use magical Galleons to communicate with the three of them. Kingsley Shacklebolt had one and Hermione had the other. A Protean Charm had been placed on them so that the three of them knew when to meet him at Hogsmeade to give reports.

"We just saw him two hours ago," Hermione pointed out, "He's not going to tell us when the meeting's going to be yet." She took out the coin anyways, it still looked the same. The numbers on the side of the coin still read '00/00/00'.

Their discussion was cut off when Ginny Weasley came in the compartment and told Ron and Hermione that they had to go to the Prefects' meeting.

Ron and Hermione left Harry in Ginny's company as they headed off the Prefects' carriage. At the door of the special compartment, they saw Draco and Pansy Parkinson.

"Draco, where were you? We missed you," Pansy softly said and kissed Draco on the cheek.

"Business to take care of," Draco mumbled in response and kissed her cheek back.

The two had known each other since they were toddlers. They weren't particularly close, but they always seemed to be in each other's company because of their families. The Malfoys and the Parkinsons were partners in business and both ancient pureblood families. Even though they had no interest in each other, Draco and Pansy both knew that there was a great chance they would be married to each other in the future. In the Slytherin pure-blood families, love often was not the first criteria in marriage. Family interests often came first. Draco never really cared, because his personal interests were always the most important in real life, as he was always taught. Love would just weigh him down and force the ambition out of him.

The Prefects of the other houses soon headed in the carriage to join Ron, Hermione, Draco, and Pansy. The Head Boy and Girl droned on about expectations and duties that nobody but Hermione seemed to pay attention to.

"Prefects will patrol the corridors every night of the week. You will be patrolling with the other prefect in your house. Everybody will get a copy of the patrolling schedule. Meeting dismissed," The Head Boy finally concluded.

Each Prefect got a copy of the patrol schedule, Hermione glanced casually at hers.

_Fifth Year Prefects Patrol Schedule_

_Mondays- Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbot (Hufflepuff)_

_Tuesdays- Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson (Slytherin)_

_Wednesdays- Anthony Goldstein, Padma Patil (Ravenclaw)_

_Thursdays- Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger (Gryffindor)_

_Sixth Year Prefects will patrol on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You may seek help from Mr. Argus Filch or the Head Boy/Girl if you have any more questions._

Hermione looked up from the schedule and grabbed Ron's sleeve, catching him by surprise.

"Wha-?" Ron turned to Hermione, who was still jerking his sleeve while he was trying to walk through the compartment door.

"I have a plan," Hermione said in obvious excitement.


	3. Vanilla and Butterflies

Chapter 3

Later that night in the Common Room, Harry and Ron sat in their usual corner with the unusual absence of Hermione. The two of them had been pestering her the whole day to reveal her plans of spying on Malfoy. The attempts had not worked as they were still sitting in the maroon color schemed common room, with a roaring and crackling fireplace to distract them from their thoughts. Hermione had disappeared two hours ago to 'carry out her plans'. She had taken Harry's Marauder's Map and his Invisiblility Cloak, destructing any plans of the two of them following and spying on her. Her reason had been that they would have to split up eventually, and since there was only one invisibility cloak, somebody would get caught in the end.

"Why won't she tell us?" Harry asked in an annoyed tone of voice. He wanted to be out there, catching Malfoy, not sitting here nice and warm on a plushy armchair.

"You don't think she's really going to _seduce _him, is she?" Ron asked with his eyes narrowing in dislike as he imagined a scene where Hermione was flipping her hair in Malfoy's presence.

"Uh, well it doesn't seem very Hermione to do that, does it?" Harry cautiously replied to Ron's question. Even through his thick-headedness, Harry could Ron had feelings for Hermione beyond friendship.

"We might as well play a game of chess while we wait," Ron said pretending he didn't care as he let go of the cushion he was twisting around as he was talking to Harry.

"This time, I'm not going to get squashed," Harry announced as he slid from the couch to the plush crimson carpet.

"Squashed like a beetle instead of squashed like a fly?" Ron remarked as he took out his chess set and placed it between them.

Hermione tried not to shiver as she stepped cautiously in the corridors of Hogwarts. The drafty wind was like an icy breath against her smooth cheek. It was past curfew time and one wrong foot against the rough, stone floor could send Filch headed in her direction. Even under the invisibility cloak, dealing with Filch and Mrs. Norris was not something she would like to do now. She knew that Malfoy and Parkinson were doing patrol rounds today. She had the perfect plan, but first she had to separate the two of them.

Near the tapestry of a scowling old man, Hermione stopped and looked around, she had to make sure it was a completely empty corridor. If a passerby heard the rustle of parchment underneath her cloak, she might get caught.

She tapped the Marauders Map with her wand and watched as the layout of the school appeared on the piece of parchment. Even after seeing this happen many times, she was still amazed when the map words and lines seemed to appear out of nowhere. She snuggled deeper into the hood of her winter cloak, wishing that she didn't tie her hair up and clutched the map tightly in her numb fingers. There were hundreds of dots on the map, where would Malfoy be?

At last, she spotted the dot labeled 'Draco Malfoy' beside the dot 'Pansy Parkinson' on the third corridor near the tapestry of Winfred the Witless. She turned her head, right beside her was the tapestry of Winfred the Witless. She saw the heads of two blondes headed her way. She needed to act fast without them knowing. Reaching into her pocket and taking a deep breath, she took a pinch of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder she took from Harry's trunk (birthday present from the Weasley twins) and threw it in their direction. She needed about two minutes of blindness from both of them.

"What the hell? Lumos! Lumos!" Draco angrily bellowed. He was caught off guard, he was walking through the third level corridor one minute, and the next he was swallowed in darkness and his stupid wand wouldn't light. It was as if all the flames from the hovering torches in the corridors went out. He couldn't even see his own hands that he placed in front of him.

Hermione quickly silenced Pansy temporarily and levitated her slightly in the air so she was now hovering near a suit of armor. Draco was wandering in the opposite direction of where Pansy was, the plan was working so far. She needed to get him to go to the Astronomy Tower. He was walking in that direction and the human instinct was to usually go forward in a situation like this. She hurried off to the shortcut to the Tower to begin her plan.

"Pansy!" Draco yelled again. This had better not be one of her stupid tricks. He had nothing against her, but sometimes, she really got on his nerves. He needed to calm down and think. If he was in some dark corridor, he should feel his way around for an exit. He moved his long, nimble fingers over the rough, stone wall. His fingertips ran over something cool and smooth, a door!

All of a sudden, it was as if his eyes had been opened again. He looked around, he was at the foot of the staircase to the Astronomy Tower, but Pansy was nowhere to be seen. He was about to turn around and head back to the corridor where he lost Pansy, but something caught his eye. A fleck of blue light shimmered on the door. He looked down, the light was coming from a butterfly shaped hairpin on the floor. He bent down and picked it up. The pin still felt a little warm, meaning it had been dropped only minutes before, he noticed that a faint vanilla scent lingered on his fingers after touching the hairpin. He raised his eyes to the lock on the door. It was unlocked. The Tower was off-bounds except for lessons, but he was a Prefect, he had patrol duty, which probably enabled him to go in the tower, but the question was…who is she?

A girl with a butterfly hairpin, the Astronomy Tower…curiosity overwhelmed him and he reached for the unlocked door. He lit his wand, half expecting it to malfunction again, but it didn't. The foot of the tower was like a stone cave, even his light footsteps echoed like a rubber ball bouncing on a metal sheet. He looked around, the girl was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, music flooded the room. She must be at the top of the tower.

Hermione threw off her Invisibility Cloak at the top of the Tower. She checked her map. All the teachers were back in their lounges and Filch's weak knees would never enable him to climb the stairs to the tower. She checked to make sure her frizzy hair was completely hidden in her hood. She took out her recorder from her pocket. It was a white baroque recorder she got for her birthday when she was seven. She ran her fingers down the once smooth exterior. She placed her lips over the mouthpiece and her fingers over the holes. She hadn't played since she came to Hogwarts, but as her fingers played the notes of the well known pieces, she found that her fingers remembered better than her brain. She was halfway through Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' when she noticed a shadow on the stone railing in front of her. She lowered the recorder.

"Is this yours?" Draco asked calmly radiating an iciness from the way he let his last word drawl out before holding out the hairpin.

Hermione inhaled in the fresh leafy scent of the night air.

_Act cool and calm, cool and calm…_

"Thank you," Hermione politely replied. She turned her head forty-five degrees so her face was still in the shadow of the turret of the castle and took the hairpin from his hand. She hoped, in the combination of dark and shadows that her face would not be visible.

Hermione lifted the recorder to her lips and continued playing. They were still standing quite far apart. Draco didn't say anything, he didn't leave either. She knew he was attracted. Not to her music playing or to her hairpin, but to her aura of mysteriousness. She was up all night last night reading through Parvati and Lavender's romance novels. Even though most of them somehow ended up talking about how the main characters were making love, she had learned that men, or more accurately males were attracted to the mysterious. She had used vanilla scented shampoo, body lotion, and body wash. According to _'Seducing the Wizard… by non-magical means' _Vanilla and cinnamon seemed to make men relate to love. This was her ultimate reason for not allowing Harry and Ron to come with her. She knew that if her _seducing _succeeded, the boys' tempers would get to the better of them and they would ruin everything. She knew that she would never be able to gain Draco's trust as long as he knew who she was. Love however was also the most dangerous and useful tool in spying. Kingsley Shacklebolt once mentioned to her that the hardest thing for a spy to do was not to get information out of people, but not to befriend the people they were spying on. The research was done, now for the real thing.

"Do you come here every night?" Draco asked in the middle of Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'.

"Not every night, only when the mood is right," Hermione replied. She could sense his mind thinking about what kind of person would find mood like this 'right'.

The half-moon was a hazy blur in a blanket of fog that surrounded the castle of Hogwarts. Draco spoke a few moments after her response.

"How do you know whether or not I'll turn you in for being in an off-bounds area past curfew?" He asked this time without the blade of ice that was usually in his cold voice, but instead with innocent curiosity.

Hermione thought his questions for a few seconds before deciding on a safe answer.

"I trust my instincts," she said responding in the same tone of voice she used throughout their entire conversation.

Draco was about to question further when he heard footsteps coming up from the staircase. He turned his head and saw a flushed and distressed Pansy rushing straight towards him.

"Draco! What happened back there? I couldn't see or talk, and when I could I was floating in the air and you were gone!" Pansy said in a both flustered and relieved tone that she had finally found her fellow Slytherin.

Hermione had taken this chance to disappear back under the Invisibility Cloak. A mysterious exit would guarantee better chances of Draco being interested and preventing Pansy from catching a glimpse of her.

Draco turned his head around to see if the girl would flee since there was another person on the tower, but she was nowhere to be seen. She couldn't have flown off the tower. Disapparate? Was she a figure of his imagination? He was about to leave but on the ground, he saw proof that she existed for sure. From the light on his wand, he could make out that the object on the ground was a paper crane. On it's right wing, there were three glowing letters emblazed on it.

_C'est la vie?_

This is life? Posed not as a statement, but as a question. Ignoring Pansy's endless babbling debate on whether they should report their mysterious darkness experience to Filch and deal with his wheezing insults or report it to Snape and be fussed about, he picked up the crane and placed it in his pocket as he turned to the staircase.

"Who's winning?" Hermione asked as she stepped into the near empty Gryffindor common room and saw her two best friends engaged in a chess match. The heat flooded senses back to her numb fingers.

Harry scowled and Ron laughed.

"Correction, who _won. _Checkmate," Ron said as his black knight battered Harry's white king.

"So, how did it go?" Harry asked Hermione as she handed him back his Invisibility Cloak and Marauder's Map.

"Better than your chess match with Ron I hope," Hermione replied.

"You hope?" Ron asked questioningly, she smelled like vanilla ice-cream. Something must be up.

"I hope," Hermione echoed as she fingered the butterfly hairpin in her pocket.


	4. The Girl on the Tower

Chapter 4

The Slytherin sixth year boys' dormitory radiated a calm stillness through it's striking green surroundings. The stillness was disturbed by a ripple in the pond. The ripple was a sleepless Draco Malfoy who was tossing and turning with the rhythm of Crabbe's snores.

Draco hated to admit this, but he was intrigued. He was interested and infused with curiosity about who the girl on the tower was. He was a Malfoy, he should only care about himself. He should be thinking of a way to carry out his father's plans, not lying in bed in the middle of the night thinking about a girl. He didn't even know what her name was or what she looked like! As Draco tossed and turned in his bed, he couldn't help but remember the subtle loneliness in the girl's tone of voice as his eyelids grew heavier.

Crabbe let out a loud, grunting snore and Draco shot up from his brief slumber and his mind drifted back to the girl on the tower.

How tall was she? From the shadows, he could only remember that she was wearing a winter cloak over her head, but it was cold last night. It would be natural to wear warmer clothes, right? But why did she put the hood on? It wasn't raining last night. When he came up from behind her, she didn't even run or yelp the way any other student would if they had been discovered by another in a forbidden place past curfew. The way she talked to him, it was almost as if she expected him or somebody else to find her. Also, yesterday as he was patrolling with Pansy, everything suddenly went dark and they were separated. Was this all planned, an attack? A practical joke? Somehow, this seemed to be linked to that girl and it disturbed him, but aroused his interest greatly at the same time.

He took out the paper crane she left behind last night. It was made of powder-blue origami paper. There was nothing special about it, except for the fact that on one wing, there were three words emblazed on it.

C'est la vie? C'est la vie? C'est la vie? This is life? What does it mean? A secret formula for girls with recorders having existence doubting moments that love to linger on forbidden Astronomy towers past curfew time? As he turned over and threw the crane onto his bedside table, he caught a glimpse of the blurry moonlight glistening through his bed curtains and wondered whether or not the girl was looking at the same moon and wondering who _he _was.

At the moment, the girl Draco was thinking about, was looking at the moonlight, but not wondering who he was. In fact, it was the opposite, she knew exactly who he was and was determined to find out more. She tossed and turned in her vanilla scented bedcovers. Would he really show up again tonight and fall for the trap? Or will her plan fail terribly and he would find out who she really is? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, she gently peeled open her maroon bed curtains and took the butterfly hairpin from her smooth, oak bedside table. Nearby, she could hear Lavender roll over. Even though technically she wasn't doing anything wrong, she didn't feel like answering awkward questions right now. The butterfly hairpin that Draco touched seemed to still have a trace of his scent. She picked it up and ran her fingers gently around its brilliant blue wings. She wondered how it would feel in her hair. Her vanilla scent combined with his more masculine, wild scent. Her heartbeat fluttered slightly, but seconds later she regained calmness and a sense of fear flooded through her instead. Draco is the enemy, she is the spy. They are people from two different worlds that do not mix and never will. She tip-toed towards the window in her furry violet slippers. Hermione threw open the window and held the hairpin out. Its enchanted wings fluttered in the breeze. She slowly let the hairpin slide through her fingers and looked out, until she saw it fall and crash into sparkling, glowing blue pieces at a field of darkness. _The butterfly was just an enchanted hairpin. It doesn't fly and never will_. Hermione thought with a cold smile as her slippers shuffled quietly on the carpet towards her soft bed.

The next morning, when Draco woke up, his eyes were blood shot with large rings underneath him, making him resemble a panda with a straw hat. His platinum-blonde hair stood out more than ever from the color contrast. Having spent the night being bored of tossing and turning, Draco eagerly tore open the emerald-green curtain as soon as the first ray of sunlight streamed through the dormitory window. He was on his way out the door in pressed school robes and his hair slickly gelled back. The rest of his dorm mates were still dragging their bodies towards the bathroom.

"What's the hurry?" Theodore Nott groggily asked. His pajamas were rumpled and his feet were sprawled on the carpet as he peered towards the direction of the bathroom, waiting for Blaise to come out.

Draco left briskly without a word, he was going to search the Great Hall this morning for girls with butterfly hairpins. He felt his heart pounding with excitement as his feet reached the Great Hall. He was at the entrance when he remembered that he should probably wipe that dazzling, goofy smile off his face and replace it with a classic Malfoy smirk.

He held his chin high and quickly scanned the Great Hall for girls with hairpins. His face fell slightly, it was too early, only a few people were there for breakfast. Only a few faces occupied the benches and none of them, in his opinion could have been the girl.

Dean Thomas: a boy, not the same gender as the girl.

Cormac Mclaggen: a boy, also too buff to have been that girl.

Ginny Weasley: too short to have been that girl.

Lavender Brown: considering how prissy she was, she probably wouldn't have risked putting on a hood, it might flatten her hair.

Hermione Granger: just…not right.

Draco sighed and plunked down on his seat. He hadn't found the girl, but on the other hand she probably wasn't up that early and he could always go to the tower again tonight to see if she would come again. Meanwhile, he would have to be content with shoveling oatmeal in his mouth while waiting for his fellow Slytherins to join him.

Hermione poked distractedly at her pancakes. She had lifted her eyes slightly when Malfoy came rushing in. She could feel his eyes on her, she felt slightly flushed and disgusted and the same time. Her plan was working, but toying with somebody's affections seemed to be a very rotten thing to do. To use something innocent and pure like love to destroy something, or rather somebody…seemed to be too oxymoron for her. She could feel the guilt mixed with the syrup coated pancakes she had just swallowed. She had to do it, she had to swallow the guilt if she wanted to complete her mission. She had to remember the Malfoy that had taunted her for all these years. The Malfoy that had shown no empathy for anybody else at Hogwarts. The Malfoy that would likely follow his father's footsteps in becoming a Death Eater and killing many innocent people. The only way she could do this was to become angry and aggressive. She must swallow the guilt and carry on.

Hermione turned her head to the side just at the moment her two best friends sat down and began attacking the food on the table. The four house tables had began to fill up as students headed down for breakfast before attending lessons. The noise grew louder as students began talking, gossiping, and exchanging news with their friends. When they were certain that they wouldn't be overheard, Harry leaned closer to Hermione and whispered, flickering his glance briefly at Malfoy who seemed to be gazing like a hawk at the students of the Great Hall.

"What did you do to Malfoy last night? He seems to look and act the same," Harry questioned Hermione.

"He doesn't know who I am," Hermione whispered back.

"If he doesn't know who you are, how are you supposed to make him trust you and stuff?" Ron asked after he swallowed his large mouthful of bagels.

"Actually, it looks like he's looking for something, look," Harry said while glancing at Draco. Who, at the moment seemed to be searching for a floating bug of some sort.

"See, it's working. He wants to find out who I am, doesn't he?" Hermione answered Ron's question.

"You're not _seducing _him, are you?" Ron asked with his fork pointed menacingly in Draco's direction.

"Hermione won't do that, Ron," Harry interjected.

Hermione didn't reply, but concentrated her efforts on chewing her pancakes twenty-five times before swallowing. She felt sickened with herself.

At around the same time as last night, Hermione crept out of the common room into the corridors in Harry's invisibility cloak. She had her recorder in her pocket and a paper crane in the other. She quickened her pace when she saw the shadows of a bent man stumbling slowly in the charms corridor. It must be Filch, no doubt followed by Mrs. Norris. When she got to the door of the tower, she saw that there was somebody already there. She could see the faint outline of his/her body against the misty fog. Leaves rustled in the distance. The person had their hood on.

"Who are you?" Hermione asked with her wand ready. This person couldn't be a teacher and whoever was at the tower at this time of the night had no good intentions. She, herself being a wonderful example.

"And who are you?" Draco asked as he spun around and took his hood off. He had waited the whole day and even gone up the tower to wait for her as soon as the sun was setting. He wasn't going to go to bed feeling like an idiot tonight for not asking her what her name was.

Hermione's heart hammered, but at the same time she felt relieved. It was Draco, her plan was working. She had to steady her voice, if she sounded nervous, it would ruin her coolness.

"I am who you think I am," Hermione replied, sounding very much like an ancient philosopher or poet who is speaking about the meaning of life.

"The girl on the tower," Draco said in an unconfident tone. He strained his eyes to see beyond the fog. The girl was like a mountain beyond the fog, if he could strain his eyes through it, he would know who she is. There was something about her that attracted him. She was filled with secrets, he wanted to unpeel the layers protecting them, and discover the secrets one by one.

"Then, I'm the girl on the tower," Hermione replied in a falsely charming tone. She had to leave, now. If she stayed any longer her cover would be blown. She walked quickly towards the direction of the staircase and in the shadows of the turrets, pulled the invisibility cloak out and wrapped it around her.

"What?" he looked up and turned around, the girl was gone. He saw something glowing on the floor and picked it up. From the light of his wand, he could tell that it was a paper crane, on it were two words.

_Carpe Diem_

_Seize the day._

Yesterday it was French and today, Latin? Who is she? More importantly, will he ever find out?

Hermione watched Draco's look of confusion, she saw him pocket the paper crane and felt satisfied. He was falling for the trap, now she had to show Ron and Harry before they got the idea that she was doing something stupid and ruin all her plans.

She set her foot down carefully along the corridors until she got to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Psssttt! Shhhh!" Hermione tried to whisper to wake up the portrait. It kept on snoring.

"Devil's Snare," Hermione hissed at the portrait, it wasn't waking up. A shadow was coming this way. She needed to get in the common room, fast!

"DEVIL'S SNARE!" Hermione screamed at the Fat Lady, who groggily swung open her portrait.

Hermione walked into the common room to find that Ron and Harry were already anxiously waiting for her to return.

"Are you going to tell us?" Ron asked impatiently. He wanted to know, now.

"Okay, I'm going to show you," Hermione said and looked around the common room to make sure it was completely empty.

"_Revelio," _Hermione muttered and a silver beam of light shot from her wand. It projected and formed a silver screen. A beam of gold shot down the center of the screen. The gold line separated the screen into two images. One of them was a room covered in green, the other was a dark, room-like place with a hazy view of the moon.

"Is that the Slytherin dormitories?" Harry asked. He was impressed, how had she managed to sneak something like that in?

"Remember last year when I was researching on how Rita Skeeter was spying on us? Well I found this tracking charm in a book. You place it on an object and it will display images surrounding that object. I put the charm on paper cranes," Hermione responded.

"Why do we need to see their dormitories?" Ron asked quizzically.

"I can't choose where to put the paper cranes, Malfoy picks them up and leaves them in any place he wants," Hermione patiently explained.

"That way, we can see what he's up to," Harry said in a dazed expression. His stream of thinking was distracted by Hermione's surprised yelp.

"The coin! It's warming! Kingsley wants to meet us…this Saturday!" Hermione said excitedly.


	5. The Recondite Butterfly

-1Chapter 5

It was early in the morning at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Even on weekdays, most students would still be in dreamland in their dormitories. Since today was Saturday, many of the teachers were still in their own beds as Harry, Hermione, and Ron headed down to the Great Hall for a quick breakfast before heading into Hogsmeade. The corridors contained a heavy, saddening silence as their footsteps rattled through it's wide, stone pillars. They wanted to arrive early so they wouldn't bump into their classmates while meeting Kingsley Shacklebolt there. An Auror meeting three school children would look very suspicious. When they entered the Great Hall, there was only one lonely looking third year Ravenclaw girl sitting by herself. At the staff table, only tiny Professor Flitwick was sitting there. The house banners seemed to look lonely without the people they were representing. It was one of the few rare moments in which you could actually see the color of the wooden benches at the tables. The three of them sat at the empty Gryffindor table and tried to whisper quietly so the echo of the Great Hall did not give their conversation away.

"Do you reckon the Order's going to give us more information?" Harry whispered quietly.

"I dunno, probably. I mean if they don't tell us anything soon, we won't have any idea what we're supposed to do," Ron said while looking forlornly at the table waiting for his breakfast to appear.

Three heaping servings of breakfast appeared at the table seconds after they sat down. It was complete with pancakes, crumpets, and a jug of pumpkin juice.

"This is slave labor, you know? If anybody just happened to sit here at any time of the day, the poor house elves would have to leave whatever they were doing and cook. Slave labor, I tell you," Hermione said as she stared at her serving of breakfast thinking of how the poor house elf who had made those pancakes had to wake up earlier simply because she, woke up earlier.

Ron opened his mouth to counter that comment but Harry quickly elbowed him hard in the ribs to shut him up. Harry had seen many versions of this conversation and most of them involved Hermione stomping angrily up to her dormitory while Ron sat in the common room muttering under his breath. They were reporting on their mission in Hogsmeade today, he would rather not deal with that the entire day.

After they were full, the three of them proceeded to the Hogsmeade exit. Argus Filch, the caretaker was already prowling around the area, waiting for a permission-less student to try and sneak into Hogsmeade so he could pounce on them.

"Names!" the caretaker asked, or more like demanded in his scratchy voice. It was common knowledge that Filch hated students mainly because he was a squib and would never be able to do magic like the students.

"Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, Gryffindor, fifth-years," Harry said as he watched Filch scan the long list for their names. After all the trouble they have gotten into the past few years, Harry was quite sure that the caretaker had their names permanently engraved into his brain as a bunch of hooligans and trouble makers. But nevertheless, Filch gave them a scowl and a very dirty look as he crossed off their names.

"Don't let me catch you hooligans bringing back dungbombs, or else I'll hang you upside down on the Astronomy Tower and whip your skin raw," he mumbled to himself as he craned his neck to look for his cat, Mrs. Norris to return to him with information about troublemakers to punish.

"If you can get whipped for that, then Fred and George must be reduced to bits and pieces by now," Ron pointed out as the three of them headed down to the Shrieking Shack where Kingsley was going to meet them. He hadn't arrived, so after fifteen minutes of pacing around, Ron and Hermione sat down on the large rocks beside the shack while Harry remained standing and constantly looking for Kingsley. Finally, he arrived.

"Have you found out anything about the Malfoys?" Kingsley asked indicating that he didn't want to only know about Draco, but his family as well.

"So far we've only kind of 'bugged him,'" Harry replied as Kingsley stared quizzically at the word 'bugged'.

"It's this cool tracking spell Hermione found, show him," Ron said answering Kingsley's questioning look and beckoning Hermione to show him the tracking charm.

"_Revelio_," Hermione whispered and the silver beam of light shot from her wand projecting two images. Kingsley watched in amazement for a few moments and questioned them about what they found out, but was slightly disappointed when they told him they didn't find out anything but the fact that Goyle slept with a teddy bear.

"So what does the Order think the Malfoys are up to?" Harry asked interrupting Ron's vivid description of how loud Blaise Zabini snored the night before.

"Well, You-Know-Who isn't too pleased with Lucius Malfoy and how he claimed to be under the Imperious Curse and all that when he lost his powers. We're guessing that Malfoy would want to present something to him to be in his favor again," Kingsley replied with a hint of doubt in his tone. He stared at the torn wooden flap of the entrance to the Shrieking Shack, he was still mesmerized when Harry spoke.

"What does he want?" Harry asked. He half knew the answer before the words had even left his lips. Whatever Voldemort or Malfoy wanted, it probably had something to do with him. When Kingsley replied however, Harry was shocked.

"Have you ever heard of an object called the Recondite Butterfly?" Kingsley asked them while tearing a blade of grass into little pieces.

Ron and Harry immediately had a blank look on their face. They certainly have never heard of it. They turned their heads to Hermione. She was the only one who actually pays attention to their History of Magic lessons and constantly visited the library. To nobody's surprise, she had an answer to his question.

"It's supposed to be a legendary object, I mean nobody's ever seen one and nobody knows what it's supposed to do, but its supposed to contain all sorts of mystical powers," Hermione replied with the extensive knowledge of a person who spent most of her free time at the library.

"So Malfoy's dad wants to give You-Know-Who something that nobody knows what it does or even whether or not it exists?" Ron asked with his eyebrows raised.

"You're wrong, it does exist. In fact, I know where it is, but not its exact location. Haven't you wondered why the weather's been so cold when summer's barely over?" Kingsley replied with an amused smile to Ron's sarcastic comment.

"So you mean all the wind and fog was caused by the Butterfly? Where is it?" Harry asked quickly. His mind was racing with ways to thwart whatever evil plans the dark side had for the object.

"Hogwarts," he simply replied.

The three of them stared at him for a moment. The legendary object with mystical powers was sitting, right there in the castle.

"If this so-called Butterfly's at Hogwarts the whole time then how come things were only starting to get weird now?" Ron asked interjecting their thoughts.

"It's a mysterious object with unknown powers. Maybe it senses that dark magic is rising," Kingsley said.

"So we have to get to the Butterfly…" Hermione drifted off her sentence with her mind clicking away at possible hiding spots for such a mysterious treasure.

"…before they do," Harry finished the sentence off for Hermione. He, too was gazing at the wonderful, mysterious, and prestigious castle and wondering how many secrets can it's millennia old walls hold.

"Draco Malfoy is the key," Kingsley said as he stood up and left the rocks, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione to put their heads together and embark on a treasure hunt.

"Let's head back to Hogwarts right now," Harry said in feverish obsession to find the Recondite Butterfly.

"C'mon it's a Hogsmeade Weekend. We should at least go to the Three Broomsticks for a Butterbeer before heading back," Ron said. He didn't want his plans to have a nice lunch at the cozy pub to be instead spent at the library.

"The Butterfly's more important than Butterbeer!" Harry said. Even if there was a bathtub full of free Firewhiskey in front of him right now, he would be too distracted to try.

"We'll have a quick drink and then head back okay?" Hermione compromised for the two of them. Normally, it was she and Ron that had arguments. She didn't want to have the two of them arguing with something as insignificant as Butterbeer.

"Let's check on Malfoy, then go to The Three Broomsticks," Harry said.

"Okay," they all agreed. The tension, however was not lifted as Harry still anxiously dug his fingernails into his palms.

The familiar beam of light shot from Hermione's wand. The same two images of the Slytherin boys' dormitories. It was the same clutter of Malfoy's beside table. The three of them strained their eyes at the screen to try and find a trace of a clue. Hermione was about to close the image when Harry spotted something.

"Look, what's that on the parchment over there," Harry pointed at the piece of parchment at the corner of the first screen.

"Yeah, hey what is it? Can you magnify the screen or something?" Ron asked while squinting his eyes trying to make out what the parchment said.

Hermione pointed her wand at the screen and muttered a few Latin words, the image in the screen become bolder and bigger. They could now see what was on the parchment.

_2 1 3 5 1 8_

_Loves me, loves me not._

_I seek a flower_

_To give me the answer_

_I desperately sought._

_Fly._

"Is that the clue to the Butterfly?" Harry asked excitedly. Kingsley was right, Malfoy was the key!

"But why would Malfoy have the clue?" Hermione commented. How would he be able to find the message in the first place. Was this even the clue? Or some kind of code?

"Maybe his dad gave it to him," Ron said. The Malfoys were a whole bunch of Death Eaters. It is no surprise that they knew dodgy ways of getting information.

Hermione didn't reply, but continued staring at the screen. Was this the key to the Recondite Butterfly? If it is, what does it mean?

"I better get going," Hermione said as she looked up from her book, _'Ancient Magical Wonders.' _The sun had set and it was time to repeat the same trip she had made in the past few days.

"Have you found anything yet?" Ron asked as he stared despairingly at the mountain of books beside the fireplace. The minute they returned to Hogwarts, Harry and Hermione had insisted on a trip to the library. Even though he was eager to solve the mystery as well, he was sick and tired of spending the entire day going through dusty, crumbling books for the clue to the message in Malfoy's bedroom.

"Nope. Maybe we should figure out what the message is saying first," Harry suggested. He, too lacked the patience and passion Hermione had for books, but he had more determination to solve the puzzle.

"Is it some kind of poem? The first line and the second last line sort of rhyme," Ron struggled to make a connection in the words.

"I dunno, maybe we should check _'A History of Wizarding English,'_" Harry clambered around and tried not to topple the stack of heavy books as he reached for the leather-bound brick of parchment at the bottom of the pile.

"Well, good luck," Hermione said as she stepped out of the common room.

Her mind was strangely blank as she retraced the familiar steps to the Astronomy Tower. She let her feet think for her brain as her footsteps traced up to the top of the tower. The poem reminded her of herself. She, like the narrator in the poem, seeked something to give her the answer to her situation right now. Was she doing the right thing?

"Have you ever felt lame before?" Draco asked. His pupils seemed to be searching, swallowing the sky in an endless sea of stars.

"I don't know," Hermione replied. She wished that Draco would start taunting her or say something cruel so the hatred in her could be released and her conscience would stop screaming at her. Draco was revealing his deep side, his emotional side, she wanted to run away and tear the world into little pieces.

"Why don't you tell me the truth?" Draco coaxed. His voice was gentle, like it was the other days on the tower. Mostly, they only stood and gazed at the stars in silence. But today was different, today he would talk, and make her talk.

"Does it matter to you? I'm just another girl," Hermione replied letting logic and knowledge slip through her fingertips. The whole situation right now was making her feel lame, very lame. She had spent the whole day trying to find the meaning to a poem that she wasn't even sure whether or not it was the key to the Recondite Butterfly, and here she was standing here every night feeling sorry for a person she wasn't even sure whether or not he was worth her sympathy. Lameness, she was certainly feeling it's vibes.

"And I'm just another boy," Draco replied and walked to the staircase of the tower.

Hermione was surprised. He didn't wait for her to leave, he just left. Just like that. She wrapped the Invisibility Cloak around her and headed back to the Gryffindor Common Room. There was something about Draco that bothered her. The…normalness, without the sneer and smirk. Instead of rejoicing at her progress in gaining his trust, she felt slightly disturbed.

A pair of eyes that had been looking at the invisible figure of Hermione took a sharp turn at the corner of the corridor and disappeared out of sight.


	6. The Fibonacci Sequence

-1Chapter 6

Hermione still held the paper crane by her fingertips when she returned to the common room. The whole situation was definitely a shock to her. Why is Draco Malfoy acting weird all of a sudden? Maybe her cover was blown? Her heart was racing madly. Did she somehow let a clue slip? Or, is there really a soft side behind the cold, hard Malfoy smirk?

_Think, think think…_

She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip, she rehearsed the steps in her head: smile, tell Harry and Ron everything went okay, and go to her dormitory and reread _Spying for the Spy._ Telling Harry and Ron about Malfoy's behavior would eventually lead to why she had to lead him up to the tower in the first place, which was not something that she would like to tell them. She was going to slowly read the book. When in doubt, read. Tomorrow, she'll head down to the Great Hall for breakfast as usual and everything will be _fine, fine, very fine._

"I just had this thought a few minutes ago. Since you take Arithmancy, maybe you can work out a connection between the numbers," Harry rushed to Hermione as soon as her feet reached the entrance to the Common Room.

"Oh, I'll just check some of my books in my dormitory. I'm actually kind of tired tonight. Goodnight," Hermione said briskly to Harry and ignored Ron's curious stare as she headed up the curved stairs. Her nervous thoughts were making her brain pound against the inside of her skull. As she slammed her head on the pillow, forgetting all about checking her books, she discovered something she could learn from Malfoy: not caring. The last thought was swirled with her cauldron of other thoughts. They swirled and stirred in with her memories.

"_I'm just another boy."_

"_Mudblood!"_

"_Who are you?"_

"_Fat molar monster!"_

"_Have you ever felt lame before?"_

"_Bushy haired beaver!"_

As long as she kept the last sentence of her thoughts in her head, she was safe. But like a simmering cauldron, the thoughts she wanted to avoid kept on bubbling to the surface of her mind. She was losing her focus. She had a mission, she had to find the Recondite Butterfly. She took a deep breath and restated this to her mind: Malfoy is the enemy, he doesn't have a nice side, never has, never will. Even the through iron repetition, she couldn't stop doubt from inching into her brain.

Hermione ascended the staircase slowly to the Astronomy Tower the next night. She needed to harden up and not feel sorry for her enemy. She needed to concentrate on the riddle. What did the poem mean? Why were there numbers on top of the paper? As she repeated the numbers in her mind, she had a feeling that she could make a connection, but what was it? She went through her entire arthihmancy textbook this morning and couldn't find any information that related to those numbers. She tried translating them into letters, adding them all up, ordering them from least to greatest, nothing seemed to work.

Hermione was lost in her sea of thoughts with her heart heavy when Draco's voice came from behind her.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked when he arrived at the top of the tower.

"Just thinking about when you'll tell Filch about me trespassing the tower, that's all," Hermione blurted out a safe response.

"Sometimes, I wonder when you'll get over your cheekiness," Draco commented cockily.

"I'm not being cheeky," Hermione retorted. In her head was the same question that Draco had. Why was _he_ being cheeky all of a sudden. It seemed as if every night she had met him on the tower, he had a new personality.

"Fine, you still didn't tell me what you were thinking about. Is it about me?" he asked in the same cocky tone complete with a smirk on his face.

"Oh of course, how can I not spend all my time obsessing with you?" she replied in a sarcastic tone. What was Malfoy playing at?

"You're making me blush," Draco suddenly said in a dead serious tone that made Hermione laugh. Malfoy blushing? She had only witnessed it three times in her entire Hogwarts career.

"Haha, very funny" Hermione said in the same sarcastic tone.

"Your voice sounds much more beautiful when you laugh," Draco complimented instead of responding to her sarcastic comment.

Hermione blushed deeply and hoped that the moonlight wasn't shining on her cheeks right now. Was Malfoy _flirting_ with her. Her own reaction was the most frightening. Instead of feeling disgusted she felt kind of like….grinning. She rarely got complimented on her physical features. Maybe this is why all the Slytherin girls were falling for Malfoy. Whereas he was snobby and mean most of the time, he seemed to have a way with girls. Hermione bit her lip and connected the constellations in the stars to avoid responding to Draco. If she said anything back she would make a fool of herself.

But why did she care all of a sudden? She didn't have any _feelings _for him. She couldn't _fall_ for someone just because he had a few conversations with her in the night and complimented her. It was the _mission_, if she made a fool of herself, she would ruin the _mission_. Discovering an excuse for her feelings was one thing, convincing herself to believe was another.

"Do you believe that your fate is written in the stars?" Hermione asked Draco to try and steer the conversation off herself.

"I don't know," Draco replied sounding serious this time.

"Why? Isn't it a yes or no question?" Hermione pried. Perhaps if he cracked under pressure, he would slip some information about the Dark Lord.

"To me, fate is something that my father planned out for me. I already know what I'm going to do after I graduate from Hogwarts. I'm probably going to marry a girl that he chooses for me and serve-" he paused before continuing, "the family honor and continue the business."

"I don't mean fate as in that. I mean fate as in who is your true love, what will you accomplish in your life time, things like that," she said while facing the ceiling of stars.

"I have no choice in marriage, I will have no opportunity for true love. My accomplishment will probably be to increase the wealth of my family," Draco said in a dejected tone. It made Hermione feel sorry for him. He was pouring his heart out to her, a stranger, and she was bound to, she will _have_ to betray him.

"But you can always dream. Nobody can stop you from dreaming," Hermione said before releasing a paper crane that was held in her hand. She turned to leave the tower.

"Wait, how come you never ask me to meet you here tomorrow?" Draco asked as Hermione turned to leave the tower.

"How come you never ask me why I leave paper cranes behind?" Hermione asked without turning around as she descended the stairs of the tower.

As she headed back to the tower, she thought about her conversation with Draco. Is his life really that miserable? It seems so…horrid, having no choice in choosing who you will spend the rest of your life with. He seemed so _nice _today. Did he notice that she seemed worried and distracted and decided to compliment her? What is his motive? Is it possible that he didn't have one tonight?

When she stepped into the common room, Ron and Harry seemed to be surrounded by a fort of book while forcing their brains to remained focused on reading the fat, heavy books.

"I'm not sure how much more of this I can take," Ron groaned and rested his head on the coffee table momentarily while staring angrily at the heavy book.

"Well did you two manage to find anything yet?" Hermione asked hopefully. Maybe a new clue to the puzzle would help keep her mind off Draco. Which unfortunately is impossible seeing that her mission was to spy on him, but as she said on the tower, nobody can stop you from dreaming…

"No," Harry slammed the cover of his book closed and threw it in the 'rejected' pile while taking another from the neatly stacked tower of leathery covers.

"Give me the poem, I'll work on the numbers tonight while you two continue reading the books," Hermione suggested while Ron bulged his tired eyes open and tried to stop them from closing.

"Can't we swap? You like reading more than I do," Ron said while poking his book with his wand as if it would reveal an answer if poked sufficiently.

"Well, we're not the ones taking arthimancy," Harry said to Ron and continued reading his own book.

The room was quiet again except for the rustle of Crookshank's paws against the common room carpet as he walked from person to person to have his fur stroked and his ears scratched. Hermione took a scrap piece of parchment out of her book bag and a quill with a bottle of ink. She unscrewed the bottle of ink and dipped her eagle feather quill in it. She studied the numbers on the riddle again, she tried adding them.

_2+1+3+5+1+820_

She rolled her quill around the bottle of ink. What would twenty mean? The letter _'U'_? Even in a dictionary, there were thousands of words that began with the letter 'U', it would be too vague for a clue. She tried converting all the numbers into letters.

_2-B, 1-A, 3-C, 5-E, 1-A, 8-H_

_BACEAH _can't be a word. Even magical spells don't spell like that. She tried rearranging the letters into words.

After a half an hour with many scribbles on Hermione's parchment and groans from Ron, Hermione concluded that converting numbers to words wouldn't work out. But those were the two most common ways codes were written in numbers. Three quarters of the arthimancy textbook was on those two methods. Almost giving up in frustration now, she rearranged the numbers from least to greatest.

_1 1 2 3 5 8_

Hermione's eyes widened, the gears in her brain were clicking away. There was something common about them, but what was it? She searched inside her memory for all of Professor Vector's homework assignments, but none came to mind. She turned her eyes away from the ink blotted parchment and faced the fire. She suddenly remembered warm visions of her childhood. Her grandparents bringing her presents when visiting, leaving cookies for Santa, her first day of school, baking gingerbread men with her mother, working on puzzles with her father…

_This _was it! She got it, she had it!

"I know! I know what the numbers mean!" Hermione screamed as she ran up to the girls' dormitory staircases to retrieve her old muggle puzzle book.

"What does it mean?" Ron asked with both curiosity at what the riddle meant and relief that he could finally stop straining his eyes at the microscopic print on his boulder sized books.

"Ordering them from smallest to biggest, didn't we try this?" Harry asked Ron as he tried to make out the numbers Hermione circled on her crinkled parchment.

"I can't believe I didn't figure this out sooner. I knew this stuff a long time ago, we didn't even have to waste all our time going through library books. We wouldn't have been able to find answers in there anyways," Hermione exclaimed as she laid the puzzle book on the table in front of the glowing fireplace. Her face flushed with excitement and from running up and down the stairs.

"_Now_ you tell me. After I practically murder my eyeballs you tell me," Ron said while kicking his book aside.

"It was _so_ obvious. The numbers are in Fibonacci sequence!" Hermione declared triumphantly having finally solved part of the puzzle.

"Uh, what's the fiba-, fibo-, fiby-thingy," Harry asked with his eyebrows raised.

"Hundreds of years ago, there was a man that lived in Pisa, Italy. His name was-" Hermione began her explanation but was cut off by Ron.

"We don't need a History of Magic lesson, get to the point," Ron said.

"See, this is the point. He wasn't a wizard, he was a muggle," Hermione explained.

"If he was a muggle, why is he on the clue to some magical object?" Harry asked.

"Maybe so that stuck-up purebloods like the Malfoys won't be able to solve the riddle," Hermione stated the first logical reason that came to mind.

"So what do the numbers mean?" Ron was getting impatient having wasted his entire day looking in the wrong place for answers.

"See, if you arrange the numbers from least to greatest, the sum of the first two numbers will equal the next. One plus one equals two. One plus two equals three and so on," Hermione explained pointing at her piece of parchment and the passage in her puzzle book explaining Fibonacci numbers.

"I'd hate to ruin the mood or anything, but what does this have to do with the rest of the puzzle?" Ron finally asked Hermione.

Harry and Hermione's wide grins faltered slightly.


	7. Like a Rose

-1Chapter 7

Hermione sat in her dormitory on her bed staring at her piece of parchment with the riddle copied onto it. The numbers on top were now arranged in Fibonacci Sequence. An owl hooted as it flew past her dormitory window. Parvati snored and rolled over in her sleep.

_1 1 2 3 5 8_

_Loves me, loves me not._

_I seek a flower,_

_To give me the answer,_

_I desperately sought._

_Fly._

Flowers, there must be thousands of them in the greenhouses alone, imagine combing the Forbidden forest for what seems to be talking flower! She laid her head down onto the foot of her bed and rested her feet on her pillows, staring lazily at her drawn bedside curtains. Her fingers stroking the warm, soft comforter that she was lying on top of. She felt bliss, pure bliss as her tired brain began to slowly relax.

"_I will always be there for you," Ron held her by the waist, pulling her closer to him. She could feel his chest muscles from quidditch practice against her back. She tilted her head back and felt his lips move from her ear to her lips. Their heads moved closer and closer until they were almost touching, her eyelids fluttered open briefly, they widened in shock. It wasn't Ronald Weasley with his bright red hair and blue eyes that stared back at her. It was Draco Malfoy with his platinum blonde hair and gray eyes that her own reflection was in._

A loud tapping noise awoke Hermione from her fantasy. She wasn't sure whether it was a horror fantasy or a romantic one. She remembered how wonderful the strong grip of Draco's arms felt around her waist. How soft and gentle his voice was when he promised her. But wasn't it Ron, not Draco? Wasn't it, _ shouldn't _it have been Ron's lanky arms wrapped around her slender waist? _Shouldn't_ it have been Ron's clear blue eyes instead of Draco's stormy gray eyes? She slid from her bed and pulled a gap open in her curtains and shuffled to the window. An owl was tapping it's talons impatiently at the windows. She opened the window to let it in. As the owl flew onto her arm and stuck it's leg out, she saw that it was no ordinary owl. It's feathers were mahogany colored with specks of gold, it had bright eyes that emanated intelligence from it's sharp glances, the tip of it's wings were monogrammed with the letters 'DM.'

"Draco Malfoy," she murmered as she stroke the feathers with the letters glinting in the moonlight. Hermione was so mesmerized between the owl and her fantasy that she didn't notice the owl was still sticking it's leg out. She untied the package and it set off. She watched the brilliant owl set off back to the Owlery before closing the window and heading back to her bed with the package clutched in her hands. She set the package on her bed and looked at it for any sign of a letter or a card, but there wasn't any. It was simply a rectangular box, roughly the size of a shoebox wrapped in brown packaging paper tied up in white string. She was about to untie the knot when she noticed something odd on one of the corners of the box. There was a little tear in the packaging, the rest of the wrapping was perfectly smooth. It was a little hole, roughly diameter of the tip of her wand. She ran her fingers over the whole and felt her fingertips tingle. She reached her arm out onto her bedside table for her wand.

"_Specialis revelio,_" she muttered as a beam of light shot out of her wand at the tear in the packaging. The brown paper began to evaporate and the corners of the box began to melt and soon the whole package disappeared. Hermione stared at the blank spot on her bed, unsure of what happened and what to do. Suddenly, in a brilliance of golden sparkles, a single, blood-red rose appeared where the package disappeared. A small piece of parchment drifted out of nowhere and landed next to the rose.

_Simply because roses are red and violets are violet._

_Meet me by the lake at 10pm._

_The Boy on the Tower_

Roses are red and violets are violet? What's he trying to say? Why is he meeting her by the lake? Did he round up his Slytherin cronies to find out who she was? But her final thought was the one that impacted her the most. _If he could have a message delivered to her, wouldn't that mean that he knows who she is?_ If she met him, he might plan to have her killed or something. If she didn't meet him, she would lose his trust and he would probably stop coming to the tower at night. There was still the clue to figure out, and he sent her a rose. Does this mean that he may have some _other_ ideas in his mind about a late night rendezvous by the lake?

Her mind immediately flashed back to her fantasy. This time, she didn't bother fighting her feelings of longing. There was no point. She hadn't reached the point of no return, she passed it. She was trying to make Draco fall for her, but instead she had fallen for him. She fell back onto her bed remembering Draco's warm, promising voice. His eyes sparkling instead of cold and dreary. She remembered how wonderful the warmth of his embrace felt. Would it feel that way in real life? Would his lips feel the same way against hers as it did in her fantasy? She ran her fingertips over her lips. Now the question remains, _is Draco trustworthy? Is he worth it?_

Draco stood at the edge of the Hogwarts grounds in his black winter cloak. His father was supposed to apparate here to meet him and check up on how he was doing with his mission. He hoped it wasn't another one of those times where his father purposely got him in trouble to train him on how to get out of sticky situations in the future. He heard shuffling from a nearby bush and quickly turned around with his wand pointed out. If this was Potter and his friends trying to get him into trouble, then they're going to be on the receiving ends of some nasty curses. A shuffle of footsteps grew closer to Draco and somebody tapped him on the shoulder.

"Paranoid or simply being prepared?" Lucius Malfoy asked with a rare amused look in his gray eyes. He took his hood off exposing his pale blonde mane and moved closer to his son.

"It's like what you always say, isn't it? There is no difference," Draco replied and diverted his eyes to the pale moon and the hoots of the surrounding owls.

"I see that some of the things I've told you still stays in your head," his father said and bore his gray eyes into Draco's to force him to make eye contact.

"I'm rather busy, please get to the point," Draco said as if he was speaking to a business partner instead of his father.

"Well obviously not busy enough. Nearly two months and not a sign that you've accomplished anything," his father's voice lost it's amusing edge and returned to its cold, harsh tone.

"If you want something to be done right, it takes time, and maybe a little bribery…" Draco's eyes lit up briefly as he glanced at his father. He wanted the mission completed desperately enough, Draco could sink his teeth into a plentiful reward. It had always been this way between him and his father, two businessmen negotiating.

"How about you complete this mission, and the Dark Lord doesn't kill the Malfoy family?" Lucius leaned forward and glared in Draco's eyes, "_All_ the Malfoys, not just the ones branded with the mark." He lifted up his own sleeve and fingered the snake and the skull mark.

"I will be looking forward to my death," Draco snapped as he turned and walked in the direction of Hogwarts. He had come out on a freezing cold night just to get lectured by his father. He had the plan, all the chess pieces were in place, but did he really want to checkmate his opponent?

Hermione had been pondering all day and was oddly jumpy whenever somebody asked her a question. She let out a little yelp when Terry Boot walked by and greeted the three of them. There were dark rings under her eyes and her hair looked even bushier than usual.

"Are you okay?" Ron asked as Hermione dropped another textbook on the ground and bent down for the umpteenth time to pick it up.

"You're acting a little weird these days, is something…bothering you?" Harry gestured with his eyes for a brief second and pointed them to Ron.

"No, it's not _that_. I'll-I'll tell you later," Hermione turned briskly around the nearest corner and walked along a less crowded corridor towards the direction of the Gryffindor common room.

She glanced at her clock. She had three hours to decide. Three hours to decide if she was to meet Draco by the lake and do something…_reckless._ Something that nobody would guess that goody-two shoes Hermione Granger would ever do. Her heartbeat increased as she imagined the adrenaline filled feeling of being daring, adventurous, but Harry and Ron's disappointed expressions floated into her mind. In all her other crazy adventures, she hadn't risked _that _much. Maybe several times where she was in a bit of danger, but _never, never_ was there a risk that her friendship with Harry and Ron would be jeopardized. She picked up the rose carefully so her fingers touched the thorn-free parts of it's stem. This risk, this recklessness, Draco, was like this rose. In order to smell it's fragrance, you have to risk cutting your fingers on it's thorns. She ran her fingers over the thorns and gently pressed her fingers in it, not hard enough to cut herself, but hard enough to leave an impression. Was it possible to enjoy the beauty of a rose without the risk of harming yourself? The only way was to cut it's thorns off, but to do so would reduce the beauty of the rose itself. Maybe people find roses so alluring because there was always the risk of being cut. Without the risk, maybe roses wouldn't seem so pretty after all.

On the other hand, there was really no point in debating with herself until she knew what Draco's motives were. But the only way to find out was to go to the lake side. She glanced at her clock, she still had thirty more minutes. She had wasted all this time pacing around her dormitory, she could do something useful with these thirty minutes, something that would redeem herself from the guilt of betraying Harry and Ron. But was that what she wanted to do? She picked up the rose by it's petals and started ripping them off one by one, the way girls did when they wanted to know if their crush liked them back.

_He loves me, he loves me not…_

Her mind clicked and her eyes grew wide. Suddenly, everything seemed to be in place. Fibonacci and the lines of the poem almost magically fit together like pieces in a puzzle.

She glanced at the clock quickly, it was 9:55, she had five minutes.

_I figured out the last piece of the puzzle, I should go…just to gather more information…_

She pulled her winter cloak off her hanger and ran down the stairs and out the common room. The corridors were still, it was past curfew time and most students were in their beds or their common rooms. She was about to step into the Great Hall when she suddenly remembered something. She didn't have her invisibility cloak or marauders' map. The exit was about twenty feet away. Filch would probably be patrolling the dungeons and working his way up. If she could cross quickly without anyone seeing, once she was out in the grounds, the shadows of the trees and her black cloak would prevent anyone from spotting her.

_Just do it, it's now or never_

She tried to silently run across the Great Hall to the exit. Her footsteps still created echoing bangs against the marble floor. She held her breath without knowing it until she exhaled in a puff of smoke from the cold temperature. She walked over to the lake, careful to only walk in the shadows of trees, which made it nearly impossible for her to see where she was going. She couldn't light her wand, because somebody might see and she would get in trouble. It seemed like years before she saw another cloaked figure in the distance.

"Figuring out my little puzzle was no challenge for you, was it?" Draco said as soon as he heard Hermione's footsteps.

"Not the hardest I've seen, but certainly…creative," Hermione responded and thought back to the burst of sparkles when the rose appeared.

"Full moon tonight," Draco looked up at the moonlight.

"Why did you want me to meet you here by the lake?" Hermione asked rather than respond to his previous comment.

"So I can do this," he moved closer to her and lifted her chin up. He bent down and gave her a gentle kiss. Her lips tingled from his touch. He tasted…good. Not like a pastry or a turkey dinner, but something more exhilarating, something more delicious. He tasted like an adventure, recklessness, uniqueness.

Hermione was in shock. There was a part of her mind that was telling her all the risk was worth it. She had managed to seduce him, for the first time in her life, she got flowers from a boy. The other part of her mind was yelling at her for her betrayal to her best friends. Before she had a chance to respond to the kiss, a loud voice caused her to pull away from Draco. Standing just a few feet away was Ronald Weasley. One split second glance into his clear blue eyes told Hermione that all the clues she solved and all the Recondite Butterflies in the world wouldn't change the look in his eyes. There was anger, a spark of jealousy, and disappointment. Raw, bitter disappointment.

"Bloody…sodding…hell…" were the only words he managed to say as he stared bewildered back and forth between Draco and Hermione.

Hermione quickly pulled away from Draco's arms and rushed after Ron. Draco stood alone by the lake feeling a combination of disgust for himself and pity for Hermione and Ron. _ Guilt, maybe?_

However he cracked a quick smile when another thought popped into his head, _his father would be pleased._


	8. Your Lingering Glance

-1Chapter 8

**A/N** Sorry for the long update time. I wrote at least five versions of this chapter before I felt satisfied. Please review after you've finished reading and tell me what you think!

"Ron, It's not what it looked like!" Hermione's voice echoed through the dormant school grounds. She struggled to catch up to Ron who was running towards the direction of the castle and ignoring her.

"I know bloody well what it looked like! You and Malfoy snogging each other senseless!" Ron bellowed and ran back to the castle, his long legs made it impossible for Hermione to catch up to him. Hermione sat down on a nearby rock and felt tears blur her sight. What had she done? Ron was right. She wanted Draco to snog her senseless. She wanted to feel the comfort of his embrace. She wanted to be admired, to feel beautiful, for once in her life, to feel sought after. What hurt her the most was not Draco's trap tonight, but the fact that she had dug this hole for herself to fall into. She had fallen for the weakness of her emotions.

Draco's trap. She realized what this meant. _Draco knew who she was the whole time._ He was playing along with her little game, but he knew who she was the whole time. Venomous, she felt hatred flood her all of a sudden. She desired, she needed _revenge._ She had fallen for him, he was toying with her, ruining her friendships.

"_Reducto!"_ she bellowed angrily at the nearest rock and watched it reduce to dust. She was going to find the Recondite Butterfly before Draco could. As for Voldemort killing his entire family, they could all go to hell for all she cared. She stomped angrily towards the castle, eager to plot revenge with Ron and Harry.

Nearby hidden behind a tree, Draco saw Hermione's angry outburst. He felt both happy and sad. Happy that Hermione will no longer be caught between loving him and hating him but sad because he had lost the friendship of the only person he had that bothered to care. He walked over to the dust reduced rock and picked up a handful of dust-sized fragments. They slipped through his fingers and drifted through the air. He was like those dust-sized fragments. He was destined to drift from place to place without free will, yet in essence he didn't deserve sympathy because he was still a rock. Everybody had a choice in life. He had two choices: cling on to people as dust, but be seen as pest and live constantly in the fear of being swept away. Or, he could gather with others, who are dust-sized boulders, just like him and revenge on the world and fate for it's cruelty of landing him in a life without choice and a life destined for loneliness. There was no choice, no choice at all.

Hermione walked back to the common room, her mind on nothing but anger. It was anger not for Draco, but for herself. She had turned into a mindless floozy, like Lavender and Parvati. She had sacrificed the mission, something so important, for a boy.

"…and there she was! Shoving her mouth towards him! And Malfoy! The slimy pervert! He was touching her!" Ron ranted on and pounded his fist on the coffee table to emphasize his anger. His face was as red as his hair and beside him were an array of scattered objects which he was probably throwing around to release his anger.

"It probably wasn't like that. I mean, this is Hermione and Malfoy we're talking about! Maybe he was leaning forward to tell her something and…uh in the trick of the light it looked like they were, you know-" Harry tried to explain but was cut off by a fuming Ron.

"-kissing. Are you trying to say I'm a liar! No bloody trick of the light can make two people look like they're snogging! Well there she is! Why don't we hear first hand how is it like to snog the 'Slytherin Prince!'" Ron directed his angry eyes at Hermione who was walking towards the two of them.

"Ron, you don't understand!" Hermione bellowed angrily back at Ron.

"I have eyes! I saw what you two were doing!" Ron yelled loudly back at Hermione.

"It was a stupid trap all along! He wanted to meet me by the lake, because he knew that _somebody_ was bound to show up there!" Hermione fumed and flopped angrily down on a plushy armchair.

"Don't make yourself excuses!" Ron's voice echoed loudly over the empty common room. Harry looked uncomfortable at this point because he had a feeling that one of them was going to say something that the other wouldn't forgive.

"I'm not making any bloody excuses!" Hermione was beginning to swear now, this was the first time Harry heard her do that, he had a feeling she was going to blow up any minute now.

"So what's your reason? You want to know what he tastes like?" Ron smirked with his face red, his fists clenched together tightly.

"You want to know why! I'll tell you why! I met him by the damn lake because for once I thought somebody actually paid attention to me! You think it's easy being me? Everyone expects me to get good marks! All they see in me is a bloody textbook! Nobody's bothered to try and see if there's anything more! All the boys, all they care about are looks! It doesn't matter if the girl's mean or something, as long as she's as skinny as a stick and she has a balloon sized chest, everyone wants to date her! There, you happy!" Hermione snapped and stomped up the stairs without saying goodnight.

"What…the hell was that about?" Ron stared questioningly at the stairs to the girls' dormitories.

"You have a sister, try asking her," Harry suggested as he ascended the steps to the boys' dormitories.

Meanwhile, up in the girls' dormitory, Hermione took a deep breath and threw herself on her bed. She knew she shouldn't have blown up at Ron, it wasn't his fault. If she saw him and Pansy Parkinson kissing by the lake, she would probably do the same to him. It was just that, she felt so raw and empty inside. The excitement and prospect of an adventure left as quickly as it came. She turned her head on her pillow and saw the rose still sitting there with a few petals that she tore off earlier that day. She stomped over to her window and threw the rose and it's remains out. She yanked her bed curtains closed and climbed onto bed with her clothes still on. Ron was mad at her, Harry probably sided with Ron, she failed to hide her identity from Draco, and the mission was probably ruined, but now she needed some time to be selfish. She needed sometime for herself before she could sort things out with Ron, Harry, and Draco.

The last name lingered in her mind. _Draco, Draco, Draco… _he was causing a big rift in her life, but at the same time, she found that her thoughts were flooded with him as she slowly drifted off to sleep.

Underneath Hermione's window below the Gryffindor Tower, Draco Malfoy stared at the torn rose lying on the ground in front of him. He bent down to pick it up. He was busy mesmerized by the beauty of the blood red rose that he did not notice one of the thorns had cut his thumb. One drop of his blood dripped from the thumb and landed on the petal of the rose. The color blended right in, his blood mingling with her scent as he let the rose float gently to the ground and left for the Great Hall.

Breakfast was awkward silence between Harry, Ron, and Hermione that morning. Hermione propped a book up in front of the salt shakers and forked bacon and eggs into her mouth as if nothing was wrong, but kept on jiggling her foot so much that she kicked Harry's shins three times in the past half hour. Ron ate his breakfast with less enthusiasm than usual and kept turning his head in Hermione's direction. Harry sat in between them and was caught in the crossfire between the stares and the shin-kicking.

"Why don't you two just talk instead of staring at each other and accidently kicking innocent bystanders?" Harry got up and left the table, leaving Hermione and Ron sitting beside each other with three feet of space in between. Ron flickered his eyes towards Hermione, who blinked awkwardly for a few moments and closed her book to face him.

"Let's go find Harry," Hermione stood up and waited for Ron to follow her.

"Umm, okay," Ron agreed and walked behind her. The only noise that came from the two of them were the sounds of their feet trudging on the dirt and grass. Hermione stopped when she reached the tree by the lake where she and Draco were kissing last night. Ron probably remembered as well, because he looked at Hermione with curious eyes.

"Do you want to know why I met him by the lake last night?" Hermione asked him. She didn't want to argue anymore. All she wanted was a civilized conversation to repair their friendship.

"I think I might know, lets not talk about it," Ron moved closer to her, indicating that they're finished with their row.

"You asked Ginny for help didn't you?" Hermione asked in a joking voice.

"Shut up," Ron replied. Hermione froze, not from Ron's reply but from the person that was staring at her directly at ten feet away, it was Draco Malfoy.

It was as if time itself and everything around them had been frozen. Hermione couldn't hear what Ron was saying. She couldn't feel the fresh breezed against her skin. She couldn't smell the sweet scent of grass. She couldn't see the sun streaming from the skies. She sensed him, only him. He walked closer and closer. She could feel hatred mixed with longing. The desire to feel her lips against his mixed with the desire to hex him. As he approached closer, she saw that he too stared at her with intensity. His blonde hair was even messier than Harry's and his robes looked as if he picked them up from the floor and stuffed himself in them, but she still saw a flicker of sapphire among the sea of gray in his eyes as he walked closer and closer. She didn't know what she expected him to do. Should she back off and run? Insult him and curse him? She never knew what the answers to those questions might be. Draco walked almost right up to her, he stared at her with those blue-gray eyes. Then the blue disappeared and he merely left without a word.

"What was that about?" Ron asked. He, too was curious. He had been tempted to reach for his wand, but Malfoy didn't seem to be doing anything. He didn't try to provoke or insult the two of them, he simply stared at Hermione and walked away. He didn't even have his two bodyguards who made up for their lack of brains with mountains of flesh.

"Harry's over there. We might as well tell him that we're not fighting anymore and he doesn't have to avoid us," Hermione said in an oddly distracted voice. She wasn't really paying attention to the situation. All she could remember was Draco's intense look. It was as if he was trying to see through her, trying to sense her confusion of anger mixed with longing and passion.

"So I see you two haven't bitten each other's heads off," Harry noted when he saw the two of them approaching.

"Even if I wanted to, I would wait until we've found the Recondite Butterfly first," Hermione replied to his comment.

"We still need to figure out the poem," Ron pointed out instead of replying to Harry's snide comment.

"I think I might have figured it out," Hermione thought back to the rose and it's petals last night. If they solved the riddle and found the Butterfly, she could disconnect her life from Draco forever. She wouldn't have to deal with her conflicting emotions, but on the other hand part of her wanted to have him in her life. Part of her wanted to feel the desire and passion she had for him, but the safety of the wizarding world depended on whether or not she could find the Recondite Butterfly. She felt sick of this heroine business of making sacrifices to save others. If she was in a world where there was no Slytherin and Gryffindor, if there was no Voldemort, if there was no Recondite Butterfly, there would be know differences between her and Draco. But if those things did not exist, their paths may have never crossed, fate sometimes has an interesting yet cruel way of weaving the pattern of life.

"Really?" Harry asked eagerly, hoping that Hermione was right and they could find the Butterfly and be a step closer to destroying Voldemort.

"You guys remember the Fibonacci numbers and the poem, right?" Hermione stopped to recollect her thoughts and tried to block out the rose that Draco sent her.

"Loves me, loves me not/I seek a flower/to give me the answer/I desperately sought/Fly," Harry quoted from memory. He read through the poem so many times the past few weeks that he could probably quote it backwards in his sleep.

"See, the last word drew my attention. Each line of the poem is at least a fragment of a sentence, but the last word just stood there alone. So, I counted the words in the poem. There are twenty-one," Hermione stopped to see if Harry or Ron could see the connection she was trying to make.

"Okay, I still don't get it, but go on," Ron stared at her with a blank face as he listened to her explain the information the poem was giving.

"Twenty-one is a Fibonacci number. You know that thing that girls like to do? They pick a flower and rip the petals off one by one while saying 'loves me, loves me not?'" Hermione stopped and asked just to make sure the boys weren't too lost in her explanation.

"I've seen Ginny do that loads of times," Ron remarked thinking about how his sister was obsessed with his best friend back when she was little. Beside him, Harry's cheeks turned pink.

"If you pick any flower with a number of petals that is a Fibonaaci number, you will always end up with 'loves me,'" Hermione explained.

"So that explains the 'I seek a flower/to give me the answer?'" Harry asked.

"Yes, I'm guessing since there's twenty-one words in the poem, we need to find a flower with twenty-one petals," Hermione concluded her explanation.

"Oh, no, and I thought looking through all those books was bad enough. Now we have to prowl around Hogwarts counting petals on flowers!" Ron groaned and said in an exasperated tone.


	9. The Last Puzzle Piece

-1Chapter 9

"I think this one's got twenty…no, never mind, it's got one petal that's sort of mutated and bigger than the rest of them, do you think it still counts?" Ron asked hopefully.

"No, it has to have perfectly twenty-one petals. The riddle told us pretty specifically how many petals the flower has to have," Hermione answered Ron without looking up from the flowers she was working on.

"Any luck, Harry?" Ron turned to Harry, who was poking at the blue begonias he was counting.

"Nope," he replied and moved onto counting petals on the petunias.

The three of them had wandered around Hogwarts counting petals on flowers ever since Hermione had revealed the third clue to Harry and Ron. At first, Harry and Ron thought it was going to be easy, twenty-one seemed like a common number. There must be many flowers at Hogwarts with twenty-one petals, but soon they found that they were wrong. Kneeling at the edge of the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the afternoon while the sun deep-fried the back of their necks was definitely not fun. Their eyes were starting to tire and blur as they strained to count the petals on what seems like the millionth flower.

"Maybe it's not a real flower, maybe it's some kind of painting of a flower," Ron suggested, hoping that they could search paintings instead of being burned by the sun.

"It might be possible, it'll be like our common room, you have to know the password to open the door behind the portrait," Harry emerged from his bundle of petunias and sneezed. "I think I've seen enough flowers to last me a lifetime."

"Come on, just fifteen more minutes and we'll take a break, okay?" Hermione continued looking at daisies, she was still fully energized and was fueled by her desire to do something to take her mind off Draco. Harry and Ron on the other hand were exhausted and bored of doing something that seemed hopeless. "Don't bother counting the forget-me-nots, they're too small to have twenty-one petals."

"Fourteen minutes left now, you just spent a minute talking and I was counting petals during that minute," Ron said behind a pile of daisies.

In the next fourteen minutes only the shuffle of trainers against dirt and the disappointed sighs of the three teenagers could be heard, finally it was time to go back in.

"A quick snack and we'll search the portraits?" Hermione suggested as they stepped into the welcoming cool draft of the Great Hall. Ron muttered something that sounded like 'slave trader' and 'inhumane workplace supervisors.'

"Come on, at least we'll be inside. Besides, think of how fun it'll be to see Malfoy's face when we snatch the Butterfly right under his nose," Harry tried to sound optimistic even though is skin was burnt raw and his voice croaked from not drinking for two hours.

"Speaking of Malfoy…" Ron motioned for them to look ahead where Draco walked towards them.

"There goes Malfoy, King of Ferrets!" Ron exclaimed in a loud voice when Draco purposely collided his shoulder hard against Harry's.

"Watch it, Potter. My cloak might be worth more than what Weasel's family has in Gringotts," Draco sneered at Ron and pretended to brush the dust off the shoulder that touched Harry.

"At least my family doesn't walk around worshipping dark lords and killing people for fun," Ron retorted and moved closer to Draco as if he was picking a fight.

"Just because my family can afford a house instead of a _pigsty_ to live in doesn't mean that we're criminals. It's not illegal to be able to afford new things you know?" Draco responded to Ron's comment which caused Ron's anger to flare up.

"Watch your dirty mouth, Malfoy! Or I'm going to curse it off!" Ron let out a long list of swear words after that which only made Malfoy smirk.

"Such terrible language, I'm afraid I'm going to have to hand out punishments," Draco shook his head as if he was really disappointed at their behavior.

"Shove off, you provoked them," Hermione stood in front of Harry and Ron and glared at Draco, who seemed to have softened slightly for a moment at Hermione, but regained his Malfoy smirk in seconds.

"This is none of your business, Granger. I'm a Prefect, he's using inappropriate language. That, I believe is not what I call a fine example to set for our younger students," he smiled triumphantly at the three of them.

Hermione moved closer and whispered menacingly so only she and Draco could hear, "Do you know what I think is inappropriate? Tricking someone to leave their dormitories past curfew. I _know _what you're up to, Malfoy," She couldn't help but recognize the scent of his aftershave and experience a wave of déjà vu wash over her.

"Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder? Luring people into the Astronomy Tower, I don't think you set a much better example," he whispered back threateningly. Hermione reached for her wand and saw that Draco's fingers automatically wrapped around his.

"Then I guess we're even, but I don't go around provoking people to fight with me in order to feed my ego," she walked away with her wand still out, in case he was planning to aim any curses at her.

"Don't talk about what you don't know, Hermione," he whispered as the three of them headed back to their common room.

"Stupid, bloody prat!" Ron declared angrily at the almost empty corridor.

"Ron! Stop swearing!" Hermione scolded as they headed towards the staircase that lead to Gryffindor Tower.

"Now you're going to be like Malfoy and threaten to put me in detention?" Ron asked angrily.

"That's not what I meant, and you should stop handing ammunition over to him! Just ignore him when he tries to provoke you!" Hermione retorted as they climbed the staircases.

"So I'm supposed to ignore him even when he insults my entire family? Handing over ammunition? Who's the one that punched him?" Ron retorted as Harry gave the password to the Fat Lady and they climbed through the portrait hole.

"Why don't we play a game of chess while eating?" Harry quickly introduced a new subject while Hermione and Ron refused to look at each other.

"I'm getting the chess set, you get the Chocolate Frogs," Ron suggested while walking up the stairs to the boys' dormitories.

"Now that I remember, I'm missing the Grindelwald card, do you have it?" Harry asked while digging through his trunk for Chocolates.

Before Ron could answer, there was a loud scream from the common room. Harry and Ron quickly ran down the stairs to see what was happening, Hermione stood at the bottom of the staircase with a newspaper clutched in her trembling hands.

"What happened?" Harry asked agitatedly.

"L-Look at the headline," Hermione answered with her voice trembling.

_Kingsley Shacklebolt Missing!_

_The Daily Prophet has received reliable inside information regarding the Auror, Kingsley Shacklebolt. According to our source, he hasn't been showing up for work in the past two weeks. Normally reliable and hardworking, it is believed that he was captured by Death Eaters (Supporters of You-Know-Who). (Story continued on page 5)_

"You don't think he's been captured by _him_, do you?" Ron asked, taking the paper from Hermione's hands and turning to page five.

"Under his orders, I reckon. Maybe spies at the ministry noticed that he and Mr. Weasley seem to be talking more and he knows that Mr. Weasley and Dumbledore are close. So, he probably figured out that he's in the Order," Harry explained while ripping open the package of Chocolate Frogs.

"I think it was Lucius Malfoy, if it was him and he captured Shacklebolt, that means that they're probably torturing him to get the information of the Butterfly out, so we need to get to the Butterfly before he breaks under torture," Hermione swiped the paper out of Ron's hands and pulled them towards the portrait hole. Kingsley Shacklebolt goes missing, Draco Malfoy discovers her identity, now that she looked at it, the Order was not the one that was controlling the game, they were merely the pawns that were moved around a giant chessboard, pawns that were being pushed into a corner by the horses and castles.

"Are we searching flowers or portraits?" this time Ron sounded serious as time was now essential to their plan.

"Flowers first might be a smarter plan, we can search portraits at night, at least if we get caught, you two can say you thought it was your turn to patrol," Harry threw the wrapper of his chocolate in the trash and stepped out of the Portrait Hole.

"Maybe we should try searching deeper into the Forbidden Forest, there's bound to be weirder plants in there," Ron followed Harry out of the common room.

"Actually, before we go deeper into the forest, there's one place next to Hogwarts castle filled with plants that we didn't look yet," Hermione said as she stepped out the common room.

The boys stopped in their tracks for a second and Harry ran back in the common room and up the stairs to the boys' dormitories.

"What are you doing?" Ron shouted in the direction of Harry's footsteps.

"We're going to the Greenhouses, we need the Invisibility Cloak, if anyone catches us, we have lots of explaining to do," Hermione explained as Harry ran back, panting heavily with the cloak in his hands.

"We need a key," he said as he threw the cloak over their bodies.

"Don't worry, Fred and George taught me this trick, it should work for the Greenhouse locks," Ron whispered.

They tiptoed and tried to walk as quietly as possible to the Greenhouses, this got to be increasingly difficult as they left the castle since there were so many students outside enjoying the rare sunshine this term. After almost trampling on a girl's notebook and an incident where the cloak almost slipped off Ron's head, the finally arrived at the row of Greenhouses.

"Which one should we try first?" Harry whispered.

"I'll close my eyes and pick one," Ron suggested.

"No, let's pick Greenhouse Seven," Hermione tugged the other two to follow her.

"Isn't that the one filled with dangerous plants and Sprout threatened to feed us to the Whomping Willow if we tried to get in?" Ron murmured worriedly.

"Well, let's hope luck's on our side today," Harry motioned for Ron to keep up so their shoes wouldn't be showing.

"Okay, before we use Fred and George's trick, I'll try opening it the normal way," Hermione took her wand out of her pocket and pointed it at the lock, she muttered the spell, "_Alohomora."_

The lock glowed faintly blue for a moment, but nothing happened.

"Does anyone have a hairpin?" Ron asked, Hermione took one out of her hair and handed it to him. He bent and twisted the pin a few times and rubbed it against his palms. He took his wand out and used the same spell Hermione used, except on the hairpin instead of the lock. He stuck the pin in the lock and wriggled it a few times and the lock clicked.

"I think it worked!" Harry whispered excitedly and they all went in the Greenhouse, they stopped momentarily in their tracks from fright. It seemed that every inch of the Greenhouse was filled with stems, vines, and leaves that did not look like innocent dandelions.

"I think I can see why we're not allowed in here," Hermione nervously looked at a purple vine with sharp spikes.

"At least it doesn't look like there are that many flowers to look at in here," Ron eyed the cauliflower-like plant to his right suspiciously.

"Actually, I think there is only one flower in here," Harry nudged them to look at the purple and pink flower with silver sparkles on it's petals, located right at the opposite wall.

"Well, we found the flower, now to get over there alive," Ron took a deep breath and tried to avoid stepping on the squabbling sprouts lying on the ground.

"Harry, stop kicking my heels!" Hermione let out a painful yelp and Ron pulled her down to avoid being seen.

"Sorry, I'll walk ahead," Harry moved so he was now in front of Ron.

"Bloody hell!" Ron sucked in his breath to stop himself from yelling out loud. "That, stupid vine just wrapped around my leg!"

"Don't move, you're going to make it worse! I'll do it!" Hermione pushed Ron's arm aside and got her wand out. "_Agumenti."_ A jet of water shot from the end of her wand and the vine immediately shrunk back into a stump.

"What was that?" Harry muttered as Ron shot the stump a very dirty look.

"It's an African plant, it's attracted to certain scents, I guess it finds that you smell good," she gave the two of them a gentle shove so they'd walk a little faster.

Ron colored slightly underneath the Invisibility Cloak.

"Someday, when you have your house, Harry, I'll give you one of those so you won't need Security Trolls," Ron relaxed slightly now that he walked a few steps without getting mangled by a plant.

"Won't you get killed when you visit me then?" Harry asked jokingly.

"Good point, maybe I'll send one of those to Snape."

"He probably smells like rotten flobberworms, it wouldn't work."

"Can't hurt to try."

Before they could say anything more, Hermione nudged them hard, now that they were so close to the flower, they could see that approaching it was not as easy as it looked from far away. The flower was planted on a rotting log that was behind a large, menacing, platinum-colored vine that thrashed it's spiked tentacles viciously at the three of them.

"Bloody hell, how are we going to get past this thing alive?" Ron exclaimed, looking nervously at the vine.

"You and Harry distract it, I'll get the flower and we'll run for it," Hermione looked at the flower located behind the vine. A part of her wanted to leave the Greenhouse and tell Ron and Harry what she knew, another part of her wanted to go and hear him explain.

"Right, stun it, grab the flower, and run for it," Ron gulped and took his wand out with trembling hands.

"As soon as the vine stops moving, I'm getting the flower."

"_Stupefy! Impedimenta! Reducto! Diffindo!" _they shouted while Hermione positioned herself on the side, right out of reach of the vine, preparing to run for the flower as soon as the plant stopped moving. They weren't sure what effects the spells had on the vine.Finally, by luck one of their spells had been aimed correctly and hit the base of the vine, it froze in midair leaving a small hole that only Hermione could have fit through.

Hermione carefully stuck her foot through the hole and tried to stop her trembling body from touching any part of the vine. She flinched and shivered when she felt the top of her head brush past one of the thorns on the vine. Harry and Ron watched with frightened expressions on their face.

"Just a little more," Hermione mumbled to herself. She let out a big breath of relief when her hand finally wrapped around the stem of the flower. She counted the petals, there were perfectly twenty-one, none of them mutated or deformed. She tugged at the stem, it didn't move.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked. In the chaos of aiming spells at the vine, the Invisibility Cloak had slipped off both of them and was now a shimmering pile of cloth at their feet.

"It…won't…move!" Hermione gasped and tried to pull harder.

"Use a spell or something!" Ron suggested.

"_Diffindo,"_ Hermione aimed a severing charm at the base of the stem, nothing happened.

"Maybe you need some sort of magic phrase," Harry looked hopeful while Ron tried to think of magical words from spell books.

"Hocus pocus?" Hermione stared at the flower, nothing happened.

But when an image of Draco floated into her mind, she understood what she had to do. She reached her fingers over to the flower and tugged gently at one of the petals.

"He loves me," she moved on to the petal next to it, "he loves me not."

When the final petal was ripped off, a blast of magic shot out of the flower and Hermione felt herself spin very quickly, then everything became still, absolutely still. When she opened her eyes, she saw Draco standing next to her, his wand pointed straight at her heart…


	10. Unveiled

-1Chapter 10

Draco landed gracefully on his feet at the chamber. He placed the Portkey in his pocket, brushed some dust off his robes, and examined the chamber. Even though he had lived in Malfoy Manor all his life, he had actually never been to this place. It was a small eight by ten room with metallic tan walls and magically flaming torches. The ground was made of the same metallic tan colored stone. There was no entrance or exit, the only way to get out was to Apparate or use a Portkey. A gust of cool air seemed to circulate around the room, Draco shivered. Not because of the breeze, but because of what he had to do when his prey finally got caught in the trap. He reached for the icy handle of his wand. He ran his fingers over the smooth, polished tip that would emanate the deadly beam of light. He paced uneasily back and forth across the small room that seemed smaller with every step he took.

"Thump!" a noise echoed off the room at the far left corner. His prey had arrived. He walked over with trembling knees and commanded himself to raise his wand at her.

Hermione quietly stood up, her caramel-brown eyes lit with a flame, her hair fanned out lightly behind her, her red lips warm and inviting, the torches on the wall dribbling a warm glow on her soft complexion.

"There is no Recondite Butterfly, is there?" she said in a calming voice with a thread of a tremble caught in the syllables. Her hazel eyes burned with intensity as they locked directly with his gray ones.

"I see you've solved the riddle."

"Just as you intended," she finished the sentence for him. Draco couldn't help but notice the disappointment and anger burning behind her gaze as she bit her lip to keep it from quivering.

"Catching on, aren't we?" he moved closer to her and rearranged his face into a cold smile. He could see that her lips were now trembling.

"I didn't need to catch on to anything in the first place. Kingsley Shacklebolt is the rat, isn't he?"

"If it makes you feel better, it was under the Imperius Curse. Not that he was fighting it particularly hard."

"Then why make him disappear, why give me a clue?"

"Because I want to know, I want to know how important I am to you," his eyes darted back and forth between the delicate features on her face, he licked his lips when he found his eyes continuously attracted to every movement of her lips. He had to remain devilish and resist the temptation of her presence, but it seemed that she was alluring him with every breath she took.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she took a step back so that they weren't touching. Draco took a step forward.

"I may not know you as well as Potter and Weasley do, but if you can figure out the riddle, then you would have noticed the headline of today's paper," he reached out his hand to touch her face, and she brushed it away with a stony expression on her face and looked away from his eyes.

"Do you really want to know?" she turned her eyes back to his and walked forward so that he was completely engulfed in her scent and her words. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes, I do," he stepped forward and wrapped his arms gently around her, he could feel her hair tickling his chin. He moved his face to the left and lowered his lips gently so that it almost met hers, and without breaking their connection of eyesight. He could almost taste the scent of her lips…

"_Expelliramius!"_

The same spell was bellowed by the two people in the chamber. They were now standing across the room from each other, their wands flown out of their hands.

"You have your answer now," she sent him a steely smile which he returned.

"There are only two ways to get out of this room, by Portkey, or by Apparating. Only Malfoys can Apparate out of here," he could see her fighting her panic and trying to keep her composure.

"You're a sick and twisted bastard!" she growled with her jaw set and her chin held high.

"I wasn't the only one firing a spell," he stared at her with what he hoped looked like cold eyes.

"So be it," he saw her feel the wall behind her for a trapdoor of some type to escape with as she pretended to calmly respond.

"There is only one way for _you_ to get out of here," he reached into his pocket and took out the Portkey. He held it out on the palm of his hand a sparkling gold butterfly, adorned with jewels, it's wings fluttered. Before it could escape, he closed his hands again.

Hermione remained silent, her eyes still staring straight into his.

"The Recondite Butterfly, the Malfoy family heirloom. Its beautiful, isn't it?" he spoke without gesturing to the Butterfly.

"Anything of yours is filthy and disgusting!"

"Kingsley Shacklebolt is correct…on certain terms. My job _is _to capture a butterfly," he walked forward to her and gently stroke her cheek with his cold fingers.

She grabbed his arm and pulled it towards her body and twisted it. He let out a yelp of surprise but refused to scream and spoke with a grimace instead.

"You want me, Hermione. If you didn't, you wouldn't have come today," his logic had been tossed away like a piece of garbage. His desire seemed to be ruling his mouth as his heart edged it forward.

"I don't want you, you filthy piece of scum!"

"I know you don't mean that," he lifted her chin up gently, just the way he did when he first kissed her by the lake, "because I want you too. I want more than what I have of you. I want all of you, every single bit of it." he murmured in a husky voice and he caressed her lips with his in a violent and unstoppable kiss.

"Stop! I-I don't want you!" she pushed him away with her lips bright red from the kiss and her breaths in heaves. "Stop doing this to me! If-If you want to kill me, just get it over with! Harry and Ron would have gone to get help by now!" she tried to walk away from him, but he stopped her and his five feet eight inches of Quidditch trained muscles stood firm on his ground.

"Don't you get it? I don't want to kill you! I made Kingsley Shacklebolt disappear and I was the one that told the _Daily Prophet. _I wanted to make sure that you knew there was something wrong with him so you would stop looking for the damn Butterfly! Why the hell did you show up anyways if you knew it was a trap and you hated me!" he seemed to be losing control as fifteen years of calm and composed graceful Malfoy features were twisted into fifteen years of rage and suppressed passion.

"It's because I'm an idiot! Hermione Jane Granger, top student of the year, Prefect of Gryffindor, doesn't mean a single thing! I'm still a naïve and idiotic girl! Happy?" a tear rolled down her cheek and she angrily swiped it away before it reached her lips.

"You want me, I want you, what the fuck are we waiting for?" he pulled her into his embrace and she pressed her cheek against his pounding heart and gingerly reached out to soothe his heavy chest.

She lifted up her lips and he bent his down. His lips first brushed lightly against the corner of her mouth. He then kissed her bottom lip and ran his tongue over her top lip. His body trembled with desire to kiss her fully on both of her lips, but he restrained.

"What are you waiting for?" her eyes filled with desire for more, more of his lips, more of his heart, more of his passion.

"You," his lips dived for hers and his tongue stroke her closed mouth and she opened them immediately and their tongues danced to their release of suppressed emotion as their lips were locked in a firm embrace. Draco's hands were on her waist and her fingers ran over his back and felt the product of years of Quidditch training.

"I'm a Gryffindor, you're a Slytherin. What _are_ we doing?" she asked when they finally resurfaced for air.

"Something that we both want to do very badly," he ran his fingers through her hair and felt her caramel locks slide between his fingers.

"Why do you want me anyways? You're the most popular boy in Slytherin. Even the Gryffindor girls talk about you sometimes and Hogwarts has plenty of pretty girls. Every boy in Hogwarts seems to have his eyes on Ginny-"

"I can have a pretty face anytime I want, but I want more than that. You're not just another girl. You're Hermione Granger, the only girl with enough nerve to punch me and still get away with it."

She blushed.

"I'm sorry, did that hurt?"

"I can say that my ego was more bruised than my face."

"Would this make it better?" she tip toed and kissed the cheek that she punched two years earlier. Before her lips could touch his cheek, he turned so that she kissed his lip.

"I definitely feel better," he grinned and his blue-gray eyes filled with a mischievous sparkle.

"I could punch you again so I can try and make you feel better."

"I think I'll pass, but right now my lips feel slightly injured, do you think you could…"

She tip toed and her lips were about to touch his when a loud beeping noise filled the chamber. Draco reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocket watch.

"My father will arrive in five minutes," he said once again in his Malfoy calmness as he was thrust back into reality.

Hermione looked into his eyes as she looked desperately for a sign as to what would happen next. After their kisses, will he still turn her into You-Know-Who? Did the kiss mean anything to him? Was she just another girl that would soon drift out of his life?

Draco walked to the left and the right of the room to pick up both of their wands. He handed Hermione's wand back to her.

He reached into his other pocket and pulled out the Recondite Butterfly. He took her hand in his.

"This is the Malfoy family heirloom. It contains the most concentrated form of magical energy in this universe. It's the Portkey out of this room," he placed the fluttering golden ornament into the palm of her hand.

"Draco, no, you can come with me! We'll go see Dumbledore, he'll help you! You don't have to do what your father-"

His lips silenced her as he kissed her hard, to make up for the past and the future that he knew he would never be able to have with her. His lips sent her the love that he so desperately wanted from her, but knew that he wasn't worthy of it. He was the son of a Death Eater and his family were Pureblood wizards since the founding of their family. His love for her will always be there but he would never be able to have her.

"I love you," he whispered. He tapped the Butterfly with his wand and stepped back.

"No! Draco! You're coming with me! I know you don't want to be on the dark side! You can still come over! I'll help you! We all can! Stop! I'm not going without you!" she reached out and tried to pull his sleeve, but the Portkey whisked her back to Hogwarts.

"No! Draco!" she screamed and her voice echoed when she opened her eyes and she found that she was in an empty classroom and he was miles away in Malfoy Manor.

Tears began to spill from her eyes as the Butterfly in her hand struggled to get free. It's jeweled eyes seemed to wink at her as it's golden wings fluttered against her palm.

"Tell Draco I love him," she whispered as she relaxed her fingers and the Butterfly took flight out the window and back to it's master.

"Goodbye," she murmured through her tears as she watched the speck of gold disappear outside the window.

Draco watched Hermione disappear. He could still feel her lips against his. He could still feel her body pressed against his. He could still taste the scent of her lips while she was kissing him. He could still feel the warmth of her body against his cold muscles.

But as the draft of the chamber swept around him and his memories and passion drowned in the bitter air, he found that he could feel nothing, nothing at all.

The End

**A/N** This story is finally finished. I must admit that I don't feel very satisfied with it because I feel that there are parts of it that could have been smoother. Anyways, I would like to thank all my readers and reviewers for their support and encouragement. I will be posting more stories on this site in the future. Goodbye for now!


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